“From Feb. 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain.

The Roman romantics “were drunk. They were naked,” says Noel Lenski, a historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them, Lenski says. They believed this would make them fertile.

The brutal fete included a matchmaking lottery, in which young men drew the names of women from a jar. The couple would then be, um, coupled up for the duration of the festival — or longer, if the match was right.”

Music group Portishead….song is called Sour Times. From the album Dummy in 1994….I digress….it’s also Ash Wednesday….for the first time since 1945 they’ve coincided. I’ve always believed The Beatles stopped nuclear war in the 1960s Their message of love was so powerful. I can’t say I feel that way about Sir Paul McCartney today. He’s so running on the band wagon for the left I won’t be able to cry when he dies. Is that hate speech?